Doncaster Knights: Griffiths expects tough Blaydon test

James Marshall

Doncaster Knights coach Clive Griffiths anticipates a tough battle this Saturday when the Knights renew acquaintances with Blaydon for their final pre-season game.

The Newcastle-based side will be the highest ranked opponents to visit Castle Park this pre-season and a stern examination is expected.

And Griffiths knows what Blaydon will bring to the table as his side aim to complete their 100 per cent pre-season winning run.

“Blaydon will no doubt bring their usual robust, no nonsense style of play,” said Griffiths.

“They’ll have a strong scrum coached by Micky Ward who has a great reputation, particularly in that aspect of the game.

“We had two titanic tussles with them in National One and I think they’ll be an ideal opposition ahead of our game with London Welsh.”

Griffiths will be looking to analyse various positional options and has been boosted by news that a number of the Knights squad should be fit for selection.

“We will try more combinations, the team that starts on Saturday won’t necessarily be the side that starts against Welsh,” said the Welshman.

“We’ve aimed to give everyone as much game time as possible in the two games so far and I think we’ve been successful in that.

“We’ve seen a lot of the new players. Unfortunately Joe [Sproston] has had to play at number eight due to circumstance but we got to see him at prop towards the end of the game against Sedgley and he looked decent.

“Alex Shaw and Matt Challinor should feature at some point on Saturday as well as Colin Quigley. Paul Jarvis has an abductor strain so he’s doubtful and we are waiting to hear on Jim Wigglesworth.”

Griffiths was relatively happy with his side’s performance in their win over Sedgley Park last weekend.

“For the most part our defence was solid, we’ve picked up on a few things that we need to sharpen up on with our defensive line but it’s easily fixable,” Griffiths said.